“People actually changed their patterns of recreation as a result of the spill. The effects of that went much, much broader than the footprint of the spill,” said Don Pitts, the department’s director for managing the BP spill money.

Parks and Wildlife has come up with five initial projects, costing about $18.4 million. All are considered “recreational:” building new restrooms, showers and other facilities at storm-battered beach parks on Galveston Island and near Port Arthur. The three other projects involve building artificial reefs miles offshore for fishing and diving.

Less Restrooms, More Restoration

But at public meetings held in Texas coastal communities last week, the Parks and Wildlife proposals drew criticism from environmentalists, who said the recreational projects were shortsighted.

“We would love to see a bigger focus on sustainable ecosystem restoration projects. We think those can provide some long-term payoff to the state of Texas,” said Scott Jones, Director of Advocacy at the Galveston Bay Foundation. He was among a dozen people who each got three minutes to address state and federal officials at a meeting in Galveston.

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“This money is now public money, and tomorrow during hurricane season it could all be gone again,” Mannchen said. “I’m looking for: Where are the large oyster reef restoration projects? Where are the large wetlands restoration programs? Where are the large coastal prairie restoration proposals? And they’re aren’t any.”

Others who were critical of the Texas approach pointed out that the other states — Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Lousiana — had all included ecosystem restoration projects in their initial proposals.

Dave Fehling / StateImpact

Amanda Fuller with the National Wildlife Federation

“We don’t really understand why Texas is positioned differently than the other states when it comes to restoration,” said Amanda Fuller, a Texas policy specialist with the National Wildlife Federation.

Parks Department: Be Patient

The Parks Department’s Don Pitts said restoration projects are not being overlooked. He told StateImpact Texas that the initial proposal is “just our first step,” and that subsequent proposals will include ecosystem projects.

“That’s a process that’s proven a bit more difficult than we anticipated, and we’re just not there yet with our ecological projects. It’s something that we work daily on,” said Pitts.

But critics worry that Texas is falling behind other states in getting the ecosystem projects moving.

“This is the way ecosystems work: everything’s interconnected. You can’t restore a piece over in Florida and ignore the other side (of the Gulf),” said Amanda Fuller with the wildlife group.